This award will provide half of the funds necessary for the acquisition of an electron microprobe which will serve a large number of faculty and students in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Rice University, as well as many other scientists and engineers at the university and in the Houston, Texas regional scientific community. Rice University is committed to supply the other half of the funding. This electron microprobe will replace an eighteen year old electron microprobe, and will enable many of the past users to have access to a state of the art instrument. The electron microprobe will be central to research in geologic areas such as mineralogy,petrology,geochemistry,tectonics, and related fields.Examples of specific research areas include the use of the mineral apatite as a tracer of fluid evolution in volcanics in Colorado and California, crystallization conditions of volcanic rocks in Hawaii,condition and timing of deformation of metamorphic rocks in several geographic areas,alteration of carbonate platform sediments in the Caribbean Sea and Indian Ocean. Researches in all aspects of material sciences will be greatly aided by the availability of this instrument.
